Private Space Technology Powers Up

Photo: Rocket science: Franklin Chang Diaz (top) is a former NASA astronaut and founder of Ad Astra Rocket Company. The company has developed a prototype plasma rocket, the VX-200 (bottom), that recently achieved 201 kilowatts of power.
Credit: José Díaz, La Nación (top); Ad Astra Rocket Company (bottom)

From Technology Review:

Former astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz says the private sector can help NASA, and reckons he has the rocket to prove it.

In the coming weeks the Obama administration will decide the future of U.S. human spaceflight. A summary report by the committee tasked with reviewing NASA's current plans and providing recommendations suggests utilizing the commercial sector for unmanned, and perhaps manned, missions as a way to reduce government costs. Franklin Chang Diaz, a former NASA astronaut and founder and president of Ad Astra Rocket Company, agrees.

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DNA Sequencing In A Holey New Way

DNA molecules will be held in place by tiny voltages within the nanohole

From The BBC:

IBM will announce on Tuesday how it intends to hold DNA molecules in tiny holes in silicon in an effort to decode their genetic secrets letter by letter.

Their microelectronic approach solves one of two long-standing problems in "nanopore" DNA sequencing: how to stop it flying through too quickly.

The aim is to speed up DNA sequencing in a push toward personalised medicine.

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Do Dust Particles Curb Climate Change?

Every cloud is different from the next. It is therefore important to study the types of cloud systems in which aerosols have the greatest influence. (Credit: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology / Stevens)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 7, 2009) — A knowledge gap exists in the area of climate research: for decades, scientists have been asking themselves whether, and to what extent man-made aerosols, that is, dust particles suspended in the atmosphere, enlarge the cloud cover and thus curb climate warming. Research has made little or no progress on this issue.

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Underground City Envisioned In Nevada

This illustration depicts how urban life would be among the water bank canals of an underground city. Credit: Andrew Kudless (Design), Nenad Katic (Visualization), Tan Nguyen, Pia-Jacqlyn Malinis, Jafe Meltesen-Lee, Benjamin Barragan (Model), Matsys Designs

From Live Science:

Sietch Nevada is a fascinating concept exhibited in Innovative Technologies and Climates at the University of Toronto. Fans of the science fiction novel Dune will immediately recognize this proposal - to build semi-subterranean terraced geometries in the Nevada desert.

"In Frank Herbert’s famous 1965 novel Dune, he describes a planet that has undergone nearly complete desertification. Dune has been called the “first planetary ecology novel” and forecasts a dystopian world without water. The few remaining inhabitants have secluded themselves from their harsh environment in what could be called subterranean oasises.

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Astronomers Discover Solar System's Largest Planetary Ring Yet Around Saturn

RING LEADER: An artist's conception of the faint, newfound ring around Saturn. The ring dwarfs the scale of the familiar system of rings closer to the planet. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Keck

From Scientific American:

A diffuse, newfound ring encircles the gas giant planet at an extraordinary distance.

A speculative search for a belt of debris stemming from one of Saturn's outer moons has turned up what appears to be the largest known planetary ring in the solar system.

The newfound ring, associated with the far-flung moon Phoebe, stretches to roughly 12.5 million kilometers from Saturn, if not more, according to a paper announcing the finding in this week's Nature. (Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group.) For comparison, the outer bound of Saturn's next largest known ring, the E ring, is less than half a million kilometers from the planet.

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Anatomy Of A Dying Star

White Dwarf
A simulation of a star's final hours may help scientists uncover what triggers its death. The program simulated the death of a white dwarf (pictured above), which is a compact remnant of a star similar to our sun. H. Bond (STScI)/R. Ciardullo (PSU)/WFPC2/HST/NASA

From Discovery Magazine:

A computer program that simulates the final hours of a star's life has been developed by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and Stony Brook University in New York.

The scientists designed the simulation hoping to uncover what actually triggers a star's death.

For decades, scientists have relied on supernovae to serve as mile markers on the highways of space. These exploded stars can be measured for brightness, which provides an estimate of their physical distance.

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Google’s Abandoned Library Of 700 Million Titles

From Epicenter:

Imagine a world where Google sucks.

It might seem a stretch. The Google logo is practically an icon of functionality. Google’s search engine and other tools are the company’s strongest, if unstated, argument in favor of the Google Books Settlement, which would give the internet the largest and most comprehensive library in history, at the cost of granting Google a de facto monopoly. It’s hard to imagine any company better equipped to scan, catalog and index millions of books than Google.

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Chemical In Sperm 'May Slow Ageing Process'

The secret of eternal youth? Photo: GETTY/AFP

From The Telegraph:

Researchers in Austria say that human sperm might be the next weapon in the fight against ageing.

A new study by scientists at Graz University found that spermidine, a compound that is found in sperm, slows ageing processes and increases longevity in yeast, flies, worms and mice, as well as human blood cells, by protecting cells from damage.

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Taking The Pill For Last 40 Years 'Has Put Women Off Masculine Men'

From The Daily Mail:

It ushered in the 1960s sexual revolution and gave women control over their own fertility.

But according to a new study, the Pill may also have changed women's taste in men.

Scientists say the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a female's interest in masculine men - and make boyish men more attractive.

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Military Robots To Get A Virtual Touch

Photo: The Packbot Explorer

From Technology Review:

A modified game controller will give military bomb-disposal experts remote touch.

iRobot, the company that makes military robots as well as the Roomba vacuuming bot, announced last Friday that it will receive funding for several endeavors from the Robotics Technology Consortium (RTC).

One project will see the company develop controllers that give remote robot operators sensory feedback. The US military currently uses iRobot's wheeled PackBot in Iraq and Afghanistan for tasks such as bomb disposal, detecting hazardous materials and carrying equipment.

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Why Minds Are Not Like Computers

From The New Atlantis:

People who believe that the mind can be replicated on a computer tend to explain the mind in terms of a computer. When theorizing about the mind, especially to outsiders but also to one another, defenders of artificial intelligence (AI) often rely on computational concepts. They regularly describe the mind and brain as the “software and hardware” of thinking, the mind as a “pattern” and the brain as a “substrate,” senses as “inputs” and behaviors as “outputs,” neurons as “processing units” and synapses as “circuitry,” to give just a few common examples.

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Russia Plots Return To Venus

The Venera missions produced tantalising images of the Venusian surface.

From The BBC:

Densely clouded in acid-laden mist, Venus used to be the Soviet Union's favourite target for planetary exploration.

Now, after a lull of almost three decades, Russia is making plans for a new mission to the "morning star" and has invited Western scientists to participate.

Last week, Moscow-based space research institute IKI hosted an international conference aimed at luring scientists from Europe and possibly other countries such as the US into the ambitious project, officially scheduled for launch in 2016.

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Studies Suggest South Coast Of South Africa Birthplace Of Modern Humans

Stratigraphic layers visible in this lower section of the PP5-6 archaeological site at Pinnacle Point, Mossel Bay, date to 79,000 to 86,000 years ago. Credit: Photo by Simen Oestmo/South African Coast Paleoclimate, Paleoenvironment, Paleoecology, Paleoanthropology Project (SACP4)

From Science In Africa:

Studies published in the journal Science reports that early modern humans living 72 000 years ago along the south coast of South Africa used fire to improve the quality and efficiency of their stone tool manufacturing. This research provides further evidence that this area may have been the origin location for the lineage that leads to all modern humans, which appeared between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago in Africa.

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18th Century Ships' Logs Predict Future Weather Forecast

Dr Dennis Wheeler launches the new project at HMS Trincomalee based at Hartlepool Marina. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Sunderland)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 6, 2009) — One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species revolutionised how we view the natural world. Now his voyages on HMS Beagle are influencing modern research on the evolution of our climate.

A ground-breaking partnership between JISC, the University of Sunderland, the Met Office Hadley Centre and the British Atmospheric Data Centre sees historical naval logbooks being used for the first time in research into climate change. The logbooks include famous voyages such as the Beagle, Cook’s HMS Discovery and Parry’s polar expedition in HMS Hecla.

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Does Taste Decrease With Age?

From Live Science:

This Week’s Question: I have a bet with a friend that you start losing your sense of taste as you get older. She says that her taste is as strong as ever and thinks I’m wrong. Who wins the bet?

In general, sensitivity to taste gradually decreases with age. But there are some whose taste isn’t affected by getting older. Who wins the bet? I won’t touch that one.

The ability to taste food and beverages means a lot to seniors. Let’s face it; we lose a lot of the pleasures of our youth, but eating well isn’t usually one of them.

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Abruptly Forgotten: Working Memory Disappears In A Blink

From Scientific American:

Certain memories die suddenly rather than fading away.

When you go from bed to bathroom on a dark night, a quick flick of the lights will leave a lingering impression on your mind’s eye. For decades evidence suggested that such visual working memories—which, even in daylight, connect the dots to create a complete scene as the eyes dart around rapidly—fade gradually over the span of several seconds. But a clever new study reported in the journal Psychological Science finds that such memories actually stay sharp until they are suddenly lost.

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Nobel Prizes For Chemistry Awarded -- News Roundup

From left, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University; and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel will share the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Reuters

Three Win Nobel For Ribosome Research -- New York Times

Three researchers whose work delves into how information encoded on strands of DNA is translated by the chemical complexes known as ribosomes into the thousands of proteins that make up living matter will share the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Swedish Academy of Sciences said Wednesday.

The trio are Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University; and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Each scientist will get a third of the prize, worth 10 million Swedish kronors in total, or $1.4 million, in a ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10.

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More News On the Nobel Prize For Chemistry

Trio wins chemistry Nobel for solving ribosome riddle -- Reuters
2 Americans, Israeli share Nobel Prize in chemistry -- L.A. Times
Ada Yonath: first Israeli woman to win a Nobel -- AFP
US duo, Israeli win Nobel Chemistry Prize -- AFP
3 Scientists Share Nobel Chemistry Prize for DNA Work -- Voice of America
2 Americans, 1 Israeli win Nobel chemistry prize -- AP
Cambridge chemist wins Nobel prize for showing how proteins are made in cells -- The Guardian
Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded for ribosome research -- Science News
X-ray crystallography at the heart of the 2009 Nobel chemistry prize -- Physics Today
Nobel Prize In Chemistry: What Ribosomes Look Like And How They Functions At Atomic Level -- Science Daily
Unraveling the Ribosome: Chemistry Nobel Awarded to Modelers of Cells' Protein-Maker -- Scientific American
FACTBOX: Nobel chemistry prize - Who are the winners? -- Reuters
List of recent Nobel Prize in chemistry winners -- AP

Flying Feline, Hidden Kitten: The Fur Flies In Amazing 'Ninja' Cat Fight

Take that: This frame catches the two pals getting to grips mid-air

From The Daily Mail:

Leaping through the air, claws outstretched these cats appear locked in mortal combat.

But rather than a deathly duel over a mouse or territory, this acrobatic pair are simply play-fighting.

Dubbed the 'ninja cats' after the Japanese feudal warriors, the sparring pair are in fact Muffi and his friend Tiger.

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Discovery Sheds New Light On Stonehenge

Members of a British archaeological team stand in newly discovered holes that once held the stones of a circular monument connected to Stonehenge by an avenue. It may have served as a crematory. (Aerial-Cam)

From The L.A. Times:

Archaeologists say the remains of another large henge near the River Avon offer clues to the building of Stonehenge and the significance of the river. They had sought the telltale holes for years.

British archaeologists have found the remains of a massive stone henge, or ceremonial circle, that was part of the ancient and celebrated Stonehenge complex, a find that is shedding new light on how the monument was built and its religious uses.

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Is The Arctic Ready To Give Up Its Treasures?

The icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnicov in pack ice off Canada Photo: Daisy Gilardini

From The Telegraph:

Global warming could reveal lucrative reserves of untapped oil, gas and precious metals beneath the ice caps in the near future - but at what environmental cost?

For all the talk among world leaders of the perils of climate change, many are scenting an opportunity. As the Arctic ice retreats, surrounding nations are looking to plunder those natural resources under the surface, estimated by the US Geological Survey to constitute as much as 13 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 per cent of its undiscovered natural gas – as well as precious metals including iron ore, gold, zinc and nickel.

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Nasa 'Needs Another £30bn To Fulfil Moon Mission'

Photo: Buzz Aldrin on the Moon in 1969. He believes a new lunar mission would be pointless - even if it were affordable. (Nasa/EPA)

From Times Online:

Nasa will not be able to meet its target of sending humans back to the Moon by 2020, or even dream of landing on Mars, because it is suffering from chronic underfunding, a presidential review panel has warned.

The US space agency needs at least another $50 billion (£30 billion) over the next decade if it is to come close to delivering on its vision for retiring the space shuttle, completing construction of the International Space Station and launching ambitious new voyages of discovery.

The bleak assessment comes from a ten-member committee established by President Obama to review America’s manned spaceflight programme. Made up of aerospace experts and former astronauts, it is not due to make its final report until the end of this month.

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Why Women Have Sex

RCWW Inc. / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

While figuring out what women want has stumped men for centuries, understanding how they think about sex may have just gotten easier. Cindy Meston and David Buss, psychologists at the University of Texas, interviewed over 1,000 women around the world for their book Why Women Have Sex and managed to come up with 237 reasons, ranging from the predictable — commitment — to the puzzling — curing a headache. Spoiler alert: love may be further down on the list than one might think. TIME spoke to Buss about the myriad mind games, turn-ons and turn-offs involved in female sexuality, and what a guy can do to stand a chance.

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The Faces of Singularity: Are You Ready For The Human-Robot Merge?

Singularity Summit Crowd David Orban/Flickr

From Popular Science:

We asked an assortment of the Singularity Summit's brilliant minds how they're looking forward to a life merged with artificial intelligence

The Singularity Summit drew a wide range of people from around the globe. There were technology companies hoping to spread brand recognition, quasi-spiritual sojourners looking for a new clue to the secret of immortality, and serious academics interested in cutting edge in artificial intelligence.

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Acidic Clouds Nourish World's Oceans

Water droplets in clouds generally form around dust and other particles. When clouds evaporate, as they often do naturally, the surface of the particle can become very acidic. This is especially true where the air is polluted. Paradoxically, scientists suggest that large scale industry in countries like China could be combating global warming to some extent by creating more bioavailable iron in the oceans, and therefore increasing carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. (Credit: Copyright Michele Hogan)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 6, 2009) — Scientists at the University of Leeds have proved that acid in the atmosphere breaks down large particles of iron found in dust into small and extremely soluble iron nanoparticles, which are more readily used by plankton.

This is an important finding because lack of iron can be a limiting factor for plankton growth in the ocean - especially in the southern oceans and parts of the eastern Pacific. Addition of such iron nanoparticles would trigger increased absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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Ancient Rome's Real Population Revealed

From Live Science:

The first century B.C. was one of the most culturally rich in the history of the Roman Empire — the age of Cicero, Caesar and Virgil. But as much as historians know about the great figures of this period of Ancient Rome, they know very little about some basic facts, such as the population size of the late Roman Empire.

Now, a group of historians has used caches of buried coins to provide an answer to this question.

During the Republican period of Rome (about the fifth to the first centuries B.C), adult male citizens of Rome could be taxed and conscribed into the army and were also given the right to vote. To keep track of this section of the population (and their taxable assets), the Roman state conducted periodic censuses.

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My Book Is Mine, Not Google's -- A Commentary

Who's book is it anyway? (Image: Andrzej Krauze)

From New Scientist:

NEXT week details of a plan that could shape the future of books and publishing in the digital age will be spelled out in a New York courtroom. The plan is complex but, in a nutshell, search engine giant Google intends to scan and make available perhaps a million or more books that are out of print but still in copyright.

Google has the support of the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, but it faces formidable opposition. Some 400 legal objections have been filed, and the US Department of Justice has serious concerns. The dispute was due to be resolved in court next week, but at the last minute Google and its partners asked for the case to be adjourned so they could make revisions. A hearing will still take place, but only to inform the parties concerned how Google intends to proceed.

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Black Holes Go 'Mano A Mano'

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/C.Canizares, M.Nowak; Optical: NASA/STScI.

From Space Daily:

This image of NGC 6240 contains new X-ray data from Chandra (shown in red, orange, and yellow) that has been combined with an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope originally released in 2008. In 2002, the discovery of two merging black holes was announced based on Chandra data in this galaxy.

The two black holes are a mere 3,000 light years apart and are seen as the bright point-like sources in the middle of the image.

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Flu Widespread In Most Of U.S.

From The L.A. Times:

The infections are 'overwhelmingly' pandemic H1N1 influenza, or swine flu, the CDC director says. Vaccine demand exceeds supply, but that will soon reverse, he says.

Influenza is widespread in most of the United States, with the incidence continuing to increase in some states and to decline very slightly in others, the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. The infections are "overwhelmingly" pandemic H1N1 influenza, commonly known as swine flu.

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Light Pollution: Night Skies, Dark No More

(Click Image to Enlarge)

From U.S. News And Report:

The ecological risks and health effects of a bright night are becoming more apparent.

The night is not what it was. Once, the Earth was cast perpetually half in shadow. Man and beast slept beneath inky skies, dotted with glittering stars. Then came fire, the candle, and the light bulb, gradually drawing back the curtain of darkness and giving us unprecedented control over our lives.

But a brighter world, it is becoming increasingly clear, has its drawbacks. A study released last month finding that breast cancer is nearly twice as common in brightly lit communities as in dark ones only added to a growing body of evidence that artificial light threatens not just stargazing but also public health, wildlife, and possibly even safety.

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Gmail, Yahoo And AOL Dragged Into Hotmail Hack Alert

From Times Online:

The theft of thousands of passwords to online email services is now known to include account details for all major e-mail providers, including Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo and AOL.

Full details of over 10,000 e-mail accounts were published on a specialist website for developers on October 1. As reported yesterday, the list was believed to comprise Microsoft Hotmail accounts, but it has since emerged that users of other e-mail services, such as Google’s Gmail, may also have had their passwords stolen.

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Why Nondrinkers May Be More Depressed

Ruediger Knobloch / A.B. / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

Alcohol has a peculiar relationship to happiness. We drink to celebrate, but because alcohol works as a depressant, it ends up deadening feelings. Not surprisingly, there's an observable correlation between alcoholism and depression, and even though it's not always clear which leads to which, everyone knows you can't drink like a Sterling Cooper employee for too long before becoming a perpetual sad sack.

But if alcohol can lead to depression, does that mean abstaining from alcohol will make you happier? A new study suggests that the opposite actually tends to be true. In fact, those who never drink are at significantly higher risk for not only depression but also anxiety disorders, compared with those who consume alcohol regularly.

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New Vaccine May Immunize Addicts from Cocaine's Pleasurable Effects

HIGH HOPES: Vaccines to decrease cocaine use have been in the works for years, but this new trial has had some encouraging results. ISTOCKPHOTO/MILOSJOKIC

From Scientific American:

Clinical trial data suggest that although pharmacotherapy for cocaine may be on the horizon, challenges remain.

Unlike opiates such as heroin or prescription painkillers, there is no medication specifically approved to help curb cocaine consumption. Now, an experimental vaccine offers hope for a new approach, researchers say, that spurs on antibodies, which bind with cocaine molecules and apparently helps some addicts stop feeling the pleasurable effects of the drug—thus deconditioning them out of their dependency.

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Run Silent Run Deep Submarines Of The Future Could Get A Communications Upgrade U.S. Navy

Run Silent Run Deep Submarines of the future could get a communications upgrade
U.S. Navy

From Popular Science:

A physicist claims that the "ghost particles" of our world could help communicate with underwater submariners.

Submariners should brace for some crazy science to match those Crazy Ivan maneuvers. A physicist says that ghost-like neutrinos that pass easily through just about everything could provide a future method of communication with deep sea submarines.

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How Twitter Can Be Used

Hat Tip: Geek Press

Bees Fight Back Against Colony Collapse Disorder: Some Honey Bees Toss Out Varroa Mites

ARS researchers have developed honey bees that more aggressively deal with varroa mites, a parasite that is one of the major problems damaging honey bees today. (Credit: Photo by Stephen Ausmus)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 5, 2009) — Honey bees are now fighting back aggressively against Varroa mites, thanks to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) efforts to develop bees with a genetic trait that allows them to more easily find the mites and toss them out of the broodnest.

The parasitic Varroa mite attacks the honey bee, Apis mellifera L., by feeding on its hemolymph, which is the combination of blood and fluid inside a bee. Colonies can be weakened or killed, depending on the severity of the infestation. Most colonies eventually die from varroa infestation if left untreated.

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Myths About Diabetes And Diet Persist

From Live Science:

Once upon a time, in the dark ages of the 1960s and '70s, a diabetes diet meant avoiding sugar. Refrigerators of diabetics were filled with Fresca; sugar bowls were filled with Sweet'N Low; and, for the most part, plates were still filled with meat and potatoes.

That diet didn't work so well, and self-administered insulin shots were often needed to keep blood-sugar levels safe.

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Rocket Company Tests World's Most Powerful Ion Engine

In the next few years, the VASIMR ion engine could be used to
boost the space station's orbit (Illustration: Ad Astra Rocket Company)

From New Scientist:

Rockets that would use charged particles to propel super-fast missions to Mars are one step closer, now that a small-scale prototype has been demonstrated at full power.

The ion engine may be used to maintain the orbit of the International Space Station within the next five years, and could lay the groundwork for rockets that could one day travel to Mars in about a month.

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LCROSS Impact Site Picked

From Discover Magazine:

NASA has chosen the final destination for the LCROSS lunar impacting probe: the crater Cabeus A, near the Moon’s south pole.

So why is NASA smacking a probe into the Moon at high speed, and why there?

The idea is that over millions and billions of years, a lot of comets have hit the Moon. The water from these comets hits the surface and sublimates away… but if any settles at the bottoms of deep craters near the Moon’s poles, these permanently shadowed regions can act as a refrigerator, keeping the water from disappearing. It can stay there, locked up as ice, for a long, long time. Some estimates indicate there could be billions of tons of ice near the Moon’s south pole.

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A Brief History Of Climate Change

From The BBC:

As the UN climate summit in Copenhagen approaches, BBC News environment correspondent Richard Black traces key milestones, scientific discoveries, technical innovations and political action.

1712 - British ironmonger Thomas Newcomen invents the first widely used steam engine, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution and industrial scale use of coal.

1800 - world population reaches one billion.

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Nobel Prize For Physics Awarded

Half of this year's Nobel Prize in Physics went to Charles K. Kao, center. The other half of the prize was shared by two researchers at Bell Labs, Willard S. Boyle, left, and George E. Smith. Reuters

Nobel Awarded for Advances in Harnessing Light -- New York Times

The mastery of light through technology was the theme of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored breakthroughs in fiber optics and digital photography.

Half of the $1.4 million prize went to Charles K. Kao for insights in the mid-1960s about how to get light to travel long distances through glass strands, leading to a revolution in fiber optic cables. The other half of the prize was shared by two researchers at Bell Labs, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, for inventing the semiconductor sensor known as a charge-coupled device, or CCD for short. CCDs now fill digital cameras by the millions.

The prize will be awarded in Stockholm on Dec. 10.

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More News On The Awarding Of The Nobel Prize In Physics

Excerpts from 2009 Nobel physics prize -- AP
‘Masters of light’ scoop Nobel physics prize -- Financial Times
3 Scientists Win 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics -- Voice of America
Nobel Prize in Physics -- Scientific American
3 win Nobel in physics for digital devices -- CNN
Nobel honours 'masters of light' -- BBC
Communication pioneers win 2009 physics Nobe -- Reuters
FACTBOX: The Nobel prize for Physics -- Reuters
Recent winners of the Nobel Prize in physics -- AP

Key Cancer Spread Gene Found

From The BBC:

Scientists have pinpointed a gene linked to more than half of all breast cancers.

The gene, NRG1 (neuregulin-1), is also thought to play a role in many bowel, prostate, ovarian and bladder tumours.

The University of Cambridge team said the breakthrough should provide "vital information" about how cancer spreads.

Experts agreed the finding, published in the journal Oncogene, could represent a very significant advance in the fight against cancer.

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Stunning Underwater Shots Captured By World's Top Female Cave Diver And Her Team

A diver swims inside the passages that lay below Peacock Springs State Park in Florida

From The Daily Mail:

Crawling through underwater caves from Antarctica to Mexico and Florida to Bermuda, it is a good thing that Jill Heinerth is not claustrophobic.

It also helps that Ms Heinerth, 44, is acknowledged as the world's top female cave diver.

Holding the world record for distance travelled in underwater caves as well as being the first person to cave dive in an Antarctic iceberg, Ms Heinerth has been at the top of her game for 20 years.

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Roman Coin Hoards Show More War Means Fewer Babies

From Wired Science:

Coins buried by anxious Italians in the first century B.C. can be used to track the ups and downs of the Roman population during periods of civil war and violence.

In times of instability in the ancient world, people stashed their cash and if they got killed or displaced, they didn’t come back for their Geld. Thus, large numbers of coin hoards are a good quantitative indicator of population decline, two researchers argue in in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science Monday.

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Ultrafast DNA Nanosensor

Image: Glowing DNA: A CCD camera sensor captures the glow of hairpin-shaped DNA nanosensors when they bind with a target gene sequence of anthrax bacteria. Credit: Benjamin Miller, University of Rochester Medical Center

From Technology Review:

A new type of sensor makes diagnosing infections quick and easy.

A portable instrument based on an ultrasensitive nanoscale sensor could detect bacteria in minutes, helping to catch infectious diseases early and prevent their spread. The simple, low-cost device should be available within three years, says Benjamin Miller, professor of dermatology and biomedical engineering at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and codeveloper of the sensor.

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Graphite Mimics Iron's Magnetism: New Nanotech Applications

The electron density of states on a grain boundary of defects. The arrows (pointing in the reader's direction) indicate the direction of the magnetic moments. (Credit: Kees Flipse, Eindhoven University of Technology)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 5, 2009) — Researchers of Eindhoven University of Technology and the Radboud University Nijmegen in The Netherlands show for the first time why ordinary graphite is a permanent magnet at room temperature. The results are promising for new applications in nanotechnology, such as sensors and detectors. In particular graphite could be a promising candidate for a biosensor material. The results will appear online on 4 October in Nature Physics.

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Green Roofs Curb Global Warming, Study Finds

Chicago's City Hall got a green roof in 2001. The project was designed to test various concepts and methods and to test the benefits. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

From Live Science:

Rooftops covered with plants — logically dubbed “green roofs” — could help fight global warming, scientists now suggest.

Green roofs are growing more popular in cities, with the number of green roofs increasing by more than 35 percent from 2007 to 2008 in the United States, representing more than 3.1 million square feet installed last year. In Germany, widely considered the leader in green roofing, some 12 percent of all flat roofs are green, with the German green roof industry growing 10 to 15 percent annually.

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Sports Jocks Are Oh-So Predictable

Another fast ball... how predictable (Image: Rex Features)

From New Scientist:

A clever athlete knows how to keep an opponent guessing, but professionals act more predictably than they should. So says a study based on game theory, which shows that baseball pitchers throw too many fastballs and American football teams don't pass the ball enough. The finding could give savvy teams an extra victory or two over the course of a season.

The game theory concept of "minimax" says that players in a head-to-head match should follow two basic rules: first, play in a way that minimises your opponent's possible gain; second, be unpredictable.

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The Power Loader Is Real

From Popular Science:

Still no word about the xenomorphs, though.

For everyone out there who's been fighting aliens with a flamethrower, but now needs something with a little more kick, you're in luck. Panasonic has taken a break from hawking TVs and camcorder to build the power loader from Aliens.

Read more ....

Baby Mammoth Yields Secrets After 40,000 Years In Siberian Tundra

From Times Online:

A baby woolly mammoth that died after being sucked into a muddy river bed 40,000 years ago has revealed more prehistoric secrets of how the species survived in its icy habitat.

The mammoth, known as Lyuba, was about a month old when she died in the Siberian tundra, where she remained until she was discovered by reindeer herders three years ago. Her body was so well preserved in the permafrost that her stomach retained traces of her mother’s milk, and scientists identified sediment in her mouth, trunk and throat — suggesting that she suffocated while struggling to free herself from the mud.

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Energy-From-Waste Powers US Army

The pyrolysis tube at the system's heart can consume 100kg of waste per hour

From The BBC:

A system that generates energy from rubbish is being sent by defence firm Qinetiq to the US army.

The PyTEC system heats mixed waste, releasing a gas that can be burned to produce five times more energy than is required to drive the system.

Qinetiq say that the system, already in use on British navy ship HMS Ocean, has been "containerised" for US army use.

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British Scientists 'Seek And Destroy' Cancer Cells Using Iron Nanoparticles

Photo: The 'nano magnets' wipe out the cancer cells without harming the surrounding tissue

From The Daily Mail:

A revolutionary technique that uses injections of iron nanoparticles to seek out and destroy cancer cells has been developed by British scientists.

The tiny particles are designed to roam through the body's blood vessels in search of tumour cells.

Once they have latched on to their targets, the magnets can be heated from outside the body using a magnetic field - wiping out the cancer cells without harming the surrounding tissue.

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